The invention relates to a time verification apparatus for the establishment of the time of the introduction of an article into the apparatus, with a stamping mechanism driven by clockwork to print the time upon a data carrier, with a magazine having an aperture for the insertion of the article and a manually operable indexing wheel through the actuation of which the article is transported out of the zone of the aperture, the stamping mechanism is actuated and when the actuation is completed the aperture is opened for the insertion of a fresh article into the magazine.
Time verification apparatus of this kind find an application in carrier pigeon competitions for example as so-called carrier pigeon clocks. On the arrival of a pigeon the pigeon identity ring is removed from the pigeon, fed into a compartment of a magazine and simultaneously the time of insertion is established on a data carrier by a printing stamp. Verifier apparatus of this kind also finds an application in other competitive sports however, for example to establish a time of arrival at the finish after handing over by the competition of an identity mark.
In the case of such time verification apparatus the circumstances are such that a plurality of articles, such as identity rings for instance, can be inserted into the magazine one after another. In the case of carrier pigeon clocks the magazine has to have more than twenty compartments for the reception of more than twenty identity rings. One important condition is thereby apparent, that the magazine cannot be manipulated, for instance through removal of identity rings from the magazine and/or through the introduction of identity rings into the magazine in the wrong order, in order to attain the result that a printed timing is associated with an identity ring to be found in a given compartment that does not agree.
Time verification apparatus are known which have a drum magazine in which a plurality of chambers is arranged. The principal disadvantage of such drum magazines is that the drum magazine must be made of a size corresponding to the maximum possible number of verifications. Thus the maximum possible space which is available for the drum magazine restricts the maximum possible number of verifications. A further disadvantage is the relatively complicated mechanism of drum magazines of this type.
The problem exists so to constitute the time verification apparatus that a large number of falsification-proof verifications is possible without a multiplicity of moving parts and without a great space requirement.